Train Travel

Don’t you enjoy that feeling of travel? The swaying of a train’s compartments as you barrel along the track, that mild panic of ‘Is this the right line? Am I going to miss it?’, followed by that relief of accepting that you’re on and locked in for your destination so correct or not that’s where you’re going. I love those feelings. They’re just so incredibly terrifying but addicting to me!

I love walking on to the train and discovering if you’re going to have company on your journey. Discovering what sort of person that company is going to be. Where are they going? Where did they come from? Will they join you in conversation or just plug some earbuds in resulting in both of you tuning the other out and just jamming to music. I love all of that, it’s just so wonderfully exciting to me. Especially when it’s not just localized to a single country because then you get strangers from all over the world! Oh the places they’ve been and the stories they could tell.

If anyone was wondering what spurred this latest post well, currently I’m on a Via Rail train straight out from Toronto. Why am I blogging instead of enjoying the window view you may ask? Well the lottery of partners passengers ended up with me having a rather demurely pretty woman who’s age I estimate to be within a couple years of mine, she’s got amazingly porcelain skin though so of course she needs to close the curtain over the window to stay out of the tanning rays of sunlight! I don’t mind when this happens by the way, it just makes the trip peaceful/productive in a different way than staring out the window and soaking up the sunlight, it certainly makes it so you have a smaller chance of overheating though!

I always seem to find interesting ways to occupy my time on trains. The last time I was on a train I was coming back from Quebec City and I was separated from my family sitting with this college student that turned out to be a criminal psychologist student, I remember she wasn’t a huge fan of the program though and had been talking about transferring at some point. Not sure if she ever got around to it though. Ah well.

Trains are a wonderful place for people watching in my opinion. There’s all sorts of people from different walks of life seated all around you, bi-lingual stewards/stewardesses walking up and down the train, there’s often not going to ever be a bland train car. Like you’re very, very, very, likely to never get on a train that’s only filled with people of a single demographic. It’s just not going to happen, the odds are astronomical.

Anyways, what do you all love about trains? Do you like their look? The feel of taking a journey by train? How it’s slightly old timey? Heck, maybe you enjoy that clickety clack of the train barreling over the rails. Whatever it is though, I feel we can all agree that trains are a pretty wonderful form of travel that both relaxing, and convenient.